Originally founded by a rich merchant family from Jaipur, Shrinahji Market mixed both the bazaar and the bizarre with disingenuous equanimity. Having shopped there before, seeking unusual stock for his store, Sanjay knew his way around the enormous, multi-acrylic-domed complex. You could buy anything in Shrinahji: fruits and vegetables; consumer electronics; illegal electronics; sex in any size, shape, color, or preferred fetish; furniture; real estate; bootleg implants; the occasional human organ; spices and condiments; automobiles-even ancient locally manufactured Ambas sador sedans that had been converted to standard fuel-cell power and were as revered as they were clunky.
One entire rambling building that had, in the American vernacular, just growed, resembled a misshapen collection of giant child's blocks. The multiplicity of huge acrylic domes that protected the market quarter sheltered the architectural amalgam from the elements, enabling its dealers and customers to set up and do business outside. The entire complex was devoted to books. Real books, printed on paper made from pulped tree mass. Like the wheezy, aerodynamically challenged Ambassador, such relics possessed much in the way of nostalgia value.
Far more upscale, and never set out on the hundreds of tables that backed up to storefronts, were ancient handwritten manuscripts boasting richly hued artwork and elaborate calligraphy. Some had been decorated with liquid gold and silver. There were maps for sale, and jewels of the Nizams that had escaped the attention of museums and collectors, and robotic astrologers that claimed to be more accurate than any human forecaster, not least because they were completely unbiased.
A city within a city, Shrinahji seethed with activity. Shrines and other religious facilities catered to the needs of Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, Animists, and Zoroastrians. Political parties and groups had their own meeting places, the market accommodating the vocal needs of everyone from the BJP to the Dalit Army, from Shiv Sena to the Militant Vegans. In their ubiquity busy personal communicators approached plague level. Their ringing and calling had been banned, lest their conjoined cacophony make the conducting of normal business impossible. Other means of announcing incoming calls had to be adopted. The reigning joke was that there were more vibrating units in Shrinahji than in all the brothels in Southeast Asia.
Sanjay's unit remained in his pocket, quiescent and unmoving. Not wishing to be distracted by casual conversation, he had turned it off prior to entering the market. Now he strolled purposefully down Bagwan Street. A late-afternoon monsoon rain was washing the air outside. Half a dozen stories above his head he could just see the drops splattering on the curving, smoky acrylic that formed the roof over this part of the market.
A tax on all sales concluded inside a covered market paid for the aircon that made Shrinahji and its less famous, less well-established siblings so popular with merchants and customers alike. Entrance was restricted to those who could prove they had legitimate business to conduct inside. Without such controls the market would be overrun with tens of thousands of street dwellers desperately seeking shelter and surcease from the city's relentless heat. Unrestrained by the special laws that protected pedestrians pounding the pavements outside, drifting bouquets of fanciful advertisements assailed him like flurries of electronic snow, badgering him to visit this shop, eat at this restaurant, patronize this clothing store, seek out this sly seller of secrets. Such unrestrained, unsupervised capitalism was restricted to enclosed places like the market, where it would not upset the delicate sensibilities of those who were easily offended by rampant commercialism.
Sanjay reveled in it all-the noise, the pushing crowds, the vocal hawking, even the inescapable adverts. He was not so many years removed from the simple life of the village to have become jaded to such things. As he walked, it seemed to him that his left shoe, the one with the hidden compartment containing the tiny mollysphere, was slightly heavier than his right. It was all in his mind, he told himself. If anything, the unhollowed-out right shoe should be heavier.
Despite the best efforts of the most powerful atmospheric scrubbers the market ownership could install, the enormous complex was still fragrant with the stink of the thousands of merchants and customers who plied its multiple levels and hundreds of narrow accessways. At least there were no vehicles to contend with, Sanjay thought gratefully as he turned a corner. All deliveries and services entered the market via specially designated underground corridors. The only way to get around Shrinahji was to walk, or utilize an approved personal transport mechanism. Being small and silent, the latter were no impediment to the foot traffic they complemented. Like everything else that came into the market, you needed a permit to use one.
Sanjay preferred to walk. A personal transport would only have hindered his progress, since pedestrians always had the right of way. The noiseless electric transports were more useful for the aged, the crippled, and the lazy. He was none of these.
Halting at an intersection, people flowing around him, he frowned at suddenly having three choices, three directions from which to choose. At a touch of his communications bracelet a glowing, three-dimensional map of the market materialized in front of his face.
Responding to voice commands directed at the bracelet, the map zoomed in response to the GPS built into the instrument until it fixed on his current position. Verbally, he entered an address. Shifting to an angled view, a green line appeared in the air, connecting the red dot that marked his position at the intersection with a building two blocks away. Satisfied, he deactivated the map, turned up the street that led off to his right, and resumed walking.
The building was old, but Sanjay was not put off by its appearance. Many historic structures near the center of the old city had been saved as part of Sagramanda's diverse and energetic preservation projects. As long as the building was of no special historical value, modern con struction techniques allowed the interiors of buildings that sat on valuable property to be gutted and updated while preserving their original appearance from the street. Many sleek modern enterprises boasted compelling nineteenth- and twentieth-century facades.
The four-story structure that rose before him was a mixture of both. Announcing himself to Security at the main entrance, he waited while his ident was checked and his appointment confirmed. Granted entry, he saw at once that the building originally had been a haveli, or house of a wealthy merchant. It had been taken apart somewhere in Mandawa, transported across India, and reassembled inside Shrinahji. In purpose it was perfectly appropriate to its present address and location within the market, as well as his reason for coming here.
A central rectangular courtyard opened to the sky-or rather, to one of the multiple acrylic domes that roofed the market complex.
Unlike those that still stood in distant Rajasthan, subject to the whims and weather of the harsh Thar Desert, the interior of this magnificent old residence had been well preserved. The upper portion of one exposed courtyard wall, where it met the overhang of the second-floor walkway, was covered with decorative old paintings; triptychs of Indian life from a century and a half ago.
Elephants with howdahs, camel caravans, Europeans in black hats, dancing girls; all followed one another around the wall in a procession of bright hues and lost innocence. Similar depictions graced the upper portions of the other three walls, with two exceptions. The decorations there were of recent vintage, and they moved.
A virtual of the highly endangered Indian lion preyed upon and brought down electronically terrified sambar deer. Elegant water birds, from egrets to spoonbills, frolicked in shallow lakes. Apsaras gave les sons to their descendants the nautch dancers while merchants in rich robes presented their wares to turbaned and bejeweled warlords who flaunted bejeweled knives and ferocious black beards. It was moving history, devoid only of noise. Adding accompanying sound might have been distracting to business. It was all very well and good, Sanjay mused as he moved through the courtyard, to honor one's past, but not at the expense of commerce.
The lift was located within a four-story-tall precast statue of Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth. The voluptuous sculpture was mildly sexist, without a doubt, but undeniably beckoning. Any business woman who objected could take her trade elsewhere. Such thoughts did not trouble Sanjay as he stepped into the lift. He came from a small village, and was a traditionalist. Supplying aesthetic balance, an abun dance of virile, scantily dressed warriors pranced and fought mock bat tles as part of the wall decor. Fair was fair.
The office he sought was on the top, fourth floor, at the rear of the complex. Standing out front was the owner's symbol: a richly garbed camel. Not a real camel, of course. It was an excellent simulacrum, complete to the methodical, metronomic chewing of its cud. Sanjay studied it purposefully, striving to identify the breed on which the effigy had been based. Bikaneri, Jaisalmeri, or Gujarati? The superbly rendered hairy ears were a giveaway. Bikaneri, he decided. He had never been to Bikaner, but he had heard of its perfectly preserved palace and other wonders from the Rat. Bikaner was the nearest large city to the temple of the rats in Deshnok.
As for being able to recognize the differences between kinds of camels, Sanjay could because it was one of
